DOVE REGULATIONS: Who makes the rules when it comes 
to Dove hunting in Texas…ahead on Passport to Texas.

This is Passport to Texas

Some dove hunters may be surprised to learn that Texas 
does not set the state’s dove season or its bag limits. 
That falls to the US Fish & Wildlife Service.
 
02—And the do it by management unit. 

Texas is in the central management unit, or flyway. Owen 
Fitzsimmons, is TPW’s web-less migratory game bird 
leader, and says Texas still has a say in the process.

09—What they’ll do, is they’ll set a range of dates. And within 
that range we have a window, essentially. We have 90 days that 
we can set the season however we see fit within the state.

Texas controls where in that range of dates our dove 
season falls.

12—And we can split it once. But we don’t have any control over 
bag limits. We have limits on when we can start the season and 
when we can stop the season, and things like that. We have some 
leeway, but most of it is controlled by Fish and Wildlife Service.

Data collected in Texas assists the US Fish and Wildlife 
service when deciding seasons and bag limits. 

07—We have our banding program, which is a nationwide banding 
program for mourning dove. But, Fish & Wildlife service also does a 
parts collection survey.

Parts collection surveys—that’s tomorrow.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series and 
funds Mourning Dove Density, Distribution, and Harvest 
surveys in Texas. [W-128-R-19]. 

For Texas Parks and Wildlife, I’m Cecilia Nasti.



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